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Tribune
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Rotting Core
Self-Released
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I’ll hand it to Tribune (pronounced TRY-bune) they are trying to do something different. The band blends accessible alt-metal hooks and vocals with occasional meanderings into melodic death metal, groove metal and metalcore. The problem is: they just don’t seem to work well together. While vocalist Bryan Baker does possess an interesting ‘clean’ voice, his death growls are fairly pedestrian and don’t add much to the songs themselves. It would probably have worked better vocally if he had stuck to using his clean voice throughout. The final moments of “Coming of Cain” are (I think) supposed to be a foreshadowing of the evil coming in “The Shadow” but...the cacophony it’s supposed to be bringing seems more like the band wasn’t sure what to do with that part so they all started playing different bits.

Although Rotting Core isn’t bad for a 3 song demo, it certainly isn’t something that would make me run out to see the band live. After several listens, nothing sticks out as being overly memorable and there are a few places that actually made me cringe a little. With some work on their song-writing and either a choice of direction or at least some smoothing and blending of the disparate parts within their songs, Tribune could conceivably come up with something decent. As it stands though, Rotting Core is a hodge podge of ideas and sub-genres that just don’t mix well. While I am happy to not listen to this demo again, I am, admittedly, intrigued by what the band might come up with next.